Pac-12 Networks: DirecTV, Comcast and Cox; the league’s letter to fans; and a list of providers

Three sections here, starting with a thought of my own, then thoughts from the conference, and finally a comprehensive list of video providers that are on board with the Pac12Nets so fans know what their options are …

*** The DirecTV situation — no deal this week, perhaps no deal this season — is a source of frustration for fans and conference officials alike.

Just last night, I talked to a close friend who lives in Tucson, has DTV and is not happy. The situation is a big deal to a lot of people. I get that.

But if I’m a Pac-12 official … if I work for Enterprises in San Francisco, the conference office in Walnut Creek or any of the schools … my greatest frustration would be with Comcast and Cox, not DTV.

Comcast and Cox are two of the Pac12Nets’ founding partners, along with Time Warner and Bright House, and they have thus far refused to provide Pac-12 National on a sports tier in many regions outside the league’s footprint, including Washington D.C./Northern Virginia, where there are thousands of Pac-12 fans.

(I haven’t heard of TWC doing the same but can’t speak to all its systems; and to be honest, I don’t know much about Bright House.)

What the National feed blackout means to many of those fans in the D.C. area, or in Chicago (to cite another example) is this: They can’t watch anything.

If the Pac12Nets aren’t available on your cable system, even if you subscribe to one of the league’s partner providers, then you cannot authenticate online.

As a result, the Oregon fan who lives in D.C. and has Comcast is much worse off than the Oregon fan who lives in Portland and has DirecTV:

The fan in Portland has the option to switch to Comcast and, because it’s within the footprint, get the Pac12Nets; the fan in D.C. already has Comcast, can’t get the Pac12Nets on TV or online, and has no option.

That is certainly not what the conference envisioned when it announced the formation of the Networks 13 months ago.

Again, no deal with DTV is a bad deal for fans. But the National feed blackout on certain Comcast and Cox systems — because they are founding partners on this project, not because of the sheer number of customers — is, one could argue, even worse.

*** The conference has written an open letter to fans about the DirecTV issue. It’s on the website and reprinted here:

Dear Pac-12 Fan,

We’ve heard from thousands of DirecTV subscribers who don’t receive Pac-12 Networks and wonder whether they’ll miss out on their teams’ most important games of the football season. We have worked around the clock to make sure that doesn’t happen, but with only a few hours remaining before the kickoff of the season, we’re writing to inform our fans that we do not have a distribution agreement with DirecTV.

This means Pac-12 fans who subscribe to DirecTV are in jeopardy of missing all 35 football games scheduled for broadcast on Pac-12 Networks, beginning Thursday night.

As you may have read, DirecTV believes that all Pac-12 fans will be satisfied by the games they can watch through other networks. We know this is not true, based on the thousands of calls and emails we’ve received from you, particularly from fans of teams that other broadcasters don’t typically feature. We also know that the other networks offered by DirecTV won’t broadcast 20 of the Pac-12’s conference games, starting with the Cal/USC matchup on September 22.

If you’re one of the fans who won’t be satisfied without Pac-12 football, or our more than 135 men’s basketball games and hundreds of other live events, we recommend finding Pac-12 Networks with another television provider.

The good news is that most Pac-12 fans have options. These fans can switch their television service to one of the more than 30 distributors that offer Pac-12 Networks, including Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox. These providers offer Pac-12 Networks’ full season lineup, including some of the most thrilling games of the season and TV Everywhere viewing online, on the iPad and on smartphones later in the season.

In just the first four weeks, Pac-12 Networks will feature all 12 schools, including appearances by #1 USC and two appearances by both #5 Oregon and #21 Stanford. Every weekend thereafter we will have at least two premiere conference matchups, all of which will have postseason implications.

To ensure you don’t miss out, please contact one of the providers below to get Pac-12 Networks in time for the kickoff of football season.

Thank you for your continued support.

*** Lastly, here’s a list of all the video providers that have carriage deals with the Pac12Nets, so fans with DTV can consider their options:

– All other overflow events available at PAC-12.com via authenticated access.

– No special treatment for the PAC-12 that the Big Ten isn’t already getting. No PAC-12 Los Angeles 24/7. No alternate channels during basketball. No alternate channels during Olympic sports.

The PAC 12 is welcome to sit out a year while DIRECTV cleans up with NFL Sunday Ticket and DIRECTV counts all the FLOOZ from Doha Bank courtesy beIN SPORT LLC.

ccrider55

Mud wrestling with pigs – Don’t do it, because you never win, and eventually you realize the pig enjoys it.

alchemist

OT:

Still waiting for you to cite your source about the Pac 12 having a deal on the table like the one you claim there is. That source should be credible, too. I’m guessing you can’t because you either made it up yourself or you read something written by someone who did.

alchemist

UCLA’s special teams is making a decent run at being the most pathetic thing I’ve seen all day. The tears at Bruins Nation will never stop making me smile.

OT

Go check out the Twitter feeds of various sports business reporters, the ones who write for print publications, not the pretty TV boy and girl variety.

DIRECTV has kept the same deal on the table since May.

The PAC-12 decided it deserves something more than the Big Ten, and has decided to sit out at least one weekend.

The PAC-12 is welcome to sit out longer, much longer. DIRECTV can care less as long as it has NFL Sunday Ticket and as long as beIN SPORT is willing to buy bandwidth on DIRECTV for 2 channels (and possibly 2-4 more channels by this time next year) at $10-15 million per channel ($3-5/subscriber.)

—

The PAC 12 has only one national football brand: Southern California, which will make exactly ONE appearance on PAC-12 Networks this season.

ccrider55

Alchemist:

Wow. Has citing sources changed that much? Sure would have made school easier.

alchemist

ccrider:

I was on ESPN a couple hours ago and hear someone there reciting a similar piece of blather and I joked about how viable news sources nowadays include “message boards frequented by DirecTV insiders,” and “some guy’s twitter feed.” I was assuming that OT saw that and came back here for some high-quality trolling. Truth be told it made me feel special.

http://thesportsbizblog.blogspot.com Mark

Jabes,
What did you do to DTV to convince them to give you the $300 and Sunday ticket. I would like to try the same thing.

The PAC-12’s problem here is that it failed to follow the example of its long-time partner the Big Ten. Had they watched closely the launch of the BTN, they would have known it would take forever to work out a deal with Comcast. BTN had national scale at launch because the Big Ten’s partner is DTV, not the cable companies. Launch nationally, demonstrate the viewer desire and then Comcast will fall in line. It may take half a season; it may take a whole season, but if the numbers are there Comcast will come. Cut a deal with DTV even at less than the price you want because the pressure on Comcast after that will be too great. Then both major national players will fall in line and three to five years from now, assuming it’s as popular as PAC-12 officials believe, the conference will cash in.

OT

@Mark:

MLB Network had the most successful launch: over 50 million subscribers from Day 1, no Digital basic (not sports tier) nationally. MLB gave up 33% equity: 16.67% to DIRECTV, and 5.55% each to Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner Cable.

Big Ten Network gave up 49% equity to NewsCorp in exchange for placement on DIRECTV at a time when NewsCorp controlled DIRECTV. That is no longer the case (DIRECTV is now controlled by Liberty Media.)

The PAC-12 cut the best deal it felt it could, but both Comcast and Cox undermined the PAC-12 by not even carrying PAC-12 National on the sports tier in Chicago, DC/MD/VA, or Houston (3 out of the top 10 markets).

DIRECTV had an offer for the PAC-12 since May: similar to what the Big Ten got, with the exception of Choice Xtra instead of Choice.

The PAC-12 wanted much more from DIRECTV as late as last week: 2 channels (PAC-12 National and PAC-12 Los Angeles 24/7.) Not gonna happen.

No auto or truck ads. Nothing at either the national, regional (i.e. auto deal associations), or local (individual car dealership) levels.

No insurance ads (particularly embarassing when AllState and State Farm spends so much money on college sports.)

No telecom ads, particularly no mobile wireless ads and no satellite TV ads.

One soft drink ad (Dr. Pepper) and one beer ad (Coors).

Missing 3 big categories. That has to change in the coming weeks or else.

Jim Jones

Earth to dcemented T E surance is a insurance companyowned by Allstate and they had several ads. Also MFS is a large financial and life insurance carrier. Once again get your head our of ***.

Harold

I haven’t seen the Pac-12 Network, of course. But the Sports Business Journal this morning — subscription required, unfortunately — quote some industry reporters agreeing with OT that the channel seems short of paid ads. I think, though, that this is always a problem with startups. With no Nielsen track record at all, there’s no way for advertisers to know how many viewers they’ll have or who those viewers will be demographically.

OT

I stand corrected regarding e-surance, which is a non-traditional online insurance broker that has been acquired by AllState but is still operated at arm’s length.

I was surprised to see so many unpaid ad slots and zero direct response ads. The NAU vs ASU game was embarassing, as there were ZERO paid ads during the 2nd ad break, with 2 minutes of unsold ad spots. Someone at Enterprises screwed up big time. (I stopped watching after ASU scored 2 TDs. That game was another mismatch.)

Direct response ads are the low-hanging fruit. Anywhere between $100 to $500 per ad. The PAC-12 left a lot of money on the table this weekend by not filling those unsold ad spots with DR ads.

There will be an “alternative mean” to watch San Jose State @ Stanford on Friday night for those with DIRECTV, Charter, UVerse, FiOS, and both COX and Comcast in many markets outside the footprint.

I will watch San Jose State @ Stanford until Stanford pulls away. If San Jose State were to hang in there, I will watch beyond half time.

Hint: dot EU

OT

AT&T Uverse has added LongHorn Network in Texas and Oklahoma.

Meanwhile, the PAC-12 continues to believe that it is entitled to special treatment compared to the Big Ten…

http://www.wireddevils.com/ Wired Devils

It’s inconceivable to me that the Pac-12 didn’t require it’s so-called “partners” to carry the network the nationally (on a sports tier outside the conference footprint would have been fine). That should have been a condition for carrying the network within the footprint. DirecTV would be under a lot more pressure to pick up the network if its customers had an alternative.

Also, there are many “mom and pop” cable companies around the country, like mine here in NE PA. The conference should be effectively giving the network away for free to these carriers outside the footprint. One of the main objectives for the network was to publicize the conference.

The could have gotten creative: channel goes to the cable co for no charge, but its customers have to pay $5 per month for streaming if they want it.

ccrider55

Bwaaaaahaha. Oh goody, LHN has moved from being available in maybe 2.5% of the Austin market up to what 5%? 6%? Wow, and in only a year? It’s a stampede! And only having to buy additional (non UT) FB games? What a model plan…

OT

The PAC-12 is asking DIRECTV to pay over $100 million/year for PAC-12 Networks, and is asking for special treatment on top of that as late as last week (PAC 12 National and PAC 12 Los Angeles 24/7 plus alternate channels during basketball and Olympic Sports in addition to football.)

Meanwhile:

The Big Ten is getting one national channel 24/7 plus football only on alternate channels.

beIN SPORT LLC is paying DIRECTV $10-15 million per channel, or $20-30 million total, to place its two channels on DIRECTV Sports Pack and en Espanol only, with plans to pay DIRECTV to carry 2-4 additional channels by this time next year.

The PAC-12 should know by now that the Big Ten deal (with the exception of Choice Xtra instead of Choice) is as good as the PAC-12 will ever get from DIRECTV this year, or next year.

The PAC-12 is welcome to sit out a year or 2 while we DIRECTV viewers enjoy free NFL Sunday Ticket and almost-free sports pack, as well as any live PAC-12 event we want to watch via “alternative means” the way we were able to watch Northern Colorado vs Utah and Northern Arizona vs Arizona State on Thursday night.

Bottom line: we DIRECTV subscribers don’t need DIRECTV to carry PAC-12 Networks in order to watch live PAC-12 networks events. The PAC-12 needs DIRECTV more than DIRECTV and its viewers need the PAC-12 Network right now. DIRECTV knows it. The PAC-12 knows it.

COUSIN MAYNARD

ot = AMY from the boot board

alchemist

COUSIN MAYNARD:

OT is actually ex-Pac 10 commissioner Tom Hansen who’s rooting for Larry Scott to fail so his own strategy of taking a two decade nap while football changed around us will be vindicated.

Jimbo

OT:

How does the SEC having a conference game on ESPN make them smarter than the Pac-12 exactly?? What does that have to do with running your schedule for your own conference network?? That statement would make sense if it wasn’t so ridiculously out of context.

Jeff

If you’re still paying DirecTV a dime you are PERSONALLY ensuring that DirecTV will NEVER carry the PAC network. If someone who cares enough to read this blog doesn’t care enough to go a few weeks without TV, then there truly is no demand for this channel. If you were bought out by DTV with $5 a month credit then you are cheap and an ass.

cdawg

I keep hearing how much cheaper and better DrecTV is than Comcast. Some poster here mentioned that he paid $185 a month. I pay $10 more for Comcast and get tons of content. Comcawt is currently working on getting access to online PAC 12 content in my state of Washington.

What im disappointed in is the fact that Comcast has screwed PAC fans outside the west coast. It’s BS.

As for DirecTV, this is a slap in the face. Leave them, go to Comcast if you want NFL. Redzone is the best thing since sliced bread for me. Settling for discounts doesn’t solve your problem. They can go to hell. If I was with them, I’d be gone yesterday.

Best part is whenthey dumped the ugly looking roof ornament in the truck. Maybe we should put themon a missle and send it to El Segundo with a nuclear warhead.

Jim

alchemist

I think all the Furd alums who have been complaining about availability of the Pac 12 Network owe Larry Scott a debt of gratitude. The smaller the audience for tonight’s effort the better.

Chris

What is interesting is that Directv says they are negotiating while the Pac 12 states that they walked away from the table, so I am confused. Who is telling the truth here?

Directv is also making this all about football, but it is much bigger than football. Take a good look at the basketball schedule and the amount of games there. Then add in the coach shows and the other sports and there is actually quite a bit of content here. I think Pac 12 needs to highlight this more and make it about more than just football. It’s a little ridiculous to keep focusing only on 35 football games.

But Jon, who is telling the truth on Directv purportedly walking away from the table. I have a hard time believing that reasonable people can’t find common ground. Maybe the reality is Pac 12 needs to drop the fee down in favor of access and ad dollars over households at this time. I see the Big 10 is up for negotiation as well, so with that around the corner and networks trying to keep that increase down it seems that Pac 12 is just going to need to take less to get coverage. If Pac 12 is worth x then Big 10 is with x+y – I mean they are an established network, and for now (and well into the future) the Big 10 is going to be worth more. There is only a certain amount of dollars available and TV is going to go through some sport of revolution here because we have far too many channels with minimal content clogging our cable and satellite airwaves.

People go to satellite for more choice because it is a nationwide or worldwide access point. That’s exactly WHY we want satellite.

Jim Jones

Chris The big 10 is at five years and contracts are coming up for renewal and they are asking for a big raise in the price from Dish who is up for renewal now and will ask the same of direct when they come up for renewal. so far the satelite companies are resisting paying more. Meanwhile the PAC 12 has been asking for the same amount of money the Big 10 gets now plaus they want no part time channels. You either turn the channel on 24/7 or you do not turn it on.

The parites are at an impasse right now although techincally talks are still going on in some form. When the Direct psokeman stated fans of the pac12 do not want more oof our games they also were only talking football as they do not care about the other psorts as they proppose to only turnon the regionals for select football games and turn off the rest of the time. They do not care about men’s basketball which is big for us Arizona Wildcat fans and they really do not care for college baseball or softball or any other psort which is dear to PAC 12 fans. Out of frustration the PAC 12 leaders asked fans to consider leaving direct and Sandy Barbour of Cal did and we sill see what Greg Byrne of Arizona does.

I do know that we will not settle for parttime Pac channels which show only select football games

Jim

ccrider55

Alchemist:

On a nit picky point, that I wasn’t sure about but believed Fox had exercised an option last year to become majority stakeholder in the BTN. An ESPN article (which may or may not be accurate) seems to agree.
“Big Ten Network Ownership: Big Ten (49 pct.) and Fox (51 pct.*) Launch date: Aug. 30, 2007 Households at launch: 17-18 million Households currently: 80 million Annual football games: At least 35 *At launch Fox owned 49 percent and the Big 10 owned 51 percent.”http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blogpost?blogname=playbookdollars&id=1042

OT

The PAC-12 had always wanted more from DIRECTV than the Big Ten got.

The PAC-12 is now playing a game of chicken with DIRECTV just to see exactly how many DIRECTV subs will go back to cable.

My educated guess is less than 200,000, which is too small a number to matter to DIRECTV now that DIRECTV is offering NFL Sunday Ticket to virtually any loyal subscriber (i.e. 10 years or longer) in addition to all new sign-ups.

BTN may be available for SUBSCRIPTION in 80 million households, but it actually only has about 51 million subscribers because households outside the Big Ten footprint states need to have the sports tier in order to get the BTN. Only about 20% of DIRECTV subs and 10% of cable subs outside the footprint take the sports tier.

OT

PAC 12 Networks have only about 11 million paid subscribers right now. DIRECTV would add about 7-8 million if the PAC-12 were to take the original deal from DIRECTV.

The choice belong to the PAC-12 at this point: take a slightly worse deal compared to the Big Ten (Choice Xtra instead of Choice inside the footprint, sports tier outside the footprint, only the national channel 24/7, with alternate channels turned on only during overflow football games) or sit out for a year, or 2, or 3.

DIRECTV has no incentive to budge right how.

ccrider55

This post on a cfb board might be an indication of someone seeing an opportunity to make inroads. Probably not. Probably pure BS as CSR’s rarely know anything more than to make a sale at almost any cost. Anyway: “I got on the phone and called Dish network and talked with a gentleman there about the Pac 12 network. He told me that Dish network is in the process of finalizing a deal to carry the Pac 12 network and Dish network subscribers should hear something shortly. I hope the info he gave me is correct.”

ccrider55

OT(DTV mouthpiece):

Shut up. I was referencing a disagreement alchemist and I had regarding majority ownership of the BTN. Nothing to do with distribution at start, 2 years in or now. Purely about %’s of ownership.

John

I am frustrated as a Cox customer outside the west coast footprint. However, I’d prefer to pester the Pac-12 instead of the cable company. My cable bill is already high enough and these athletic departments have plenty of money. If this works for the pac-12, the sec, big 12, and others will likely follow suit. In the mean time, I need to draft a letter to my Congressional representative asking them to stop allowing tax deductions for the purchase of football tickets.

Jim Jones

Fox owns 51% AND HAS FOR A WHILE/

alchemist

ccrider:

I looked a bunch and everyone agrees is a 51-49 split but different sources say different things about who owns the majority share. Let’s just stick with what we know: it’s way worse than our setup.

Jim Jones

Alchemist you are right there have been conflicting reports on it and no one officially states which is right. I have seen some say it Fox 51 and some say 49 but fox cleaarly runs it not the Big 10 and this is where itis way different we run the Pac 12 networks.

Superdeluxe

Saw a post on a sports radio dj Facebook that a dtv rep told them they are doing a trial run on 626

ccrider55

Alchemist:

Kristi Dosh is actually a pretty accurate and reliable sports business writer.
And yes, I prefer the PAC’s 100% ownership. Half the distribution of the BTN yields basically equivalent income assuming similar $/sub arrangement. Getting close to the BTN distribution would be a home run.

alchemist

Superdeluxe:

I would be surprised if a DTV rep had that much information. Nice if it’s true but I’d take it with a grain of salt.

OT

Nothing on Sixtoreport at dbstalk.com as of Sunday.

We will know each Wednesday morning, usually after 6am Pacific time. whether PAC-12 National has been uplinked for testing. That is the definite tell. Not facebook. Not some CSR. Not ESPN 700 Salt Lake radio host Bill Riley. Not Jon Wilner.

My prediction remains: no deal until September 21 at the earliest, and only if the PAC-12 were to give in. DIRECTV has not moved an inch since May and has no reason to move.

ccrider55

Do you get a payment based on the number af hits that site gets? How many times have you posted that link?

alchemist

OT:

Doesn’t really matter. Pac 12 is making money for the next 12 years anyway even if they don’t add other video providers or don’t have a single paid ad. I would like more fans to have access but if those with options are bad enough fans that they can be bought with 30 pieces of silver from DirecTV or some other MSO then I can’t be bothered with them. I would like to see more get done but if anyone thinks they have the conference over a barrel and get to dictate terms because they think the Pac 12 needs them then screw ’em, we will be fine without them. The Pac 12 has a proud and brilliant history of taking people who are less important than they think they are and telling them to go play in traffic (see Texas in 2010 and again in 2011).

OT

@Alchemist:

You wrote: “Doesn’t really matter. Pac 12 is making money for the next 12 years anyway even if they don’t add other video providers or don’t have a single paid ad.”

My reply:

B—S—

Without additional video subscribers, PAC 12 Enterprises will suck down every penny of TV rights fee from FOX and ESPN. Enterprises has significant overhead in addition to start-up costs.

Make no mistake: PAC 12 Enterprises needs additional paid video subscribers, from DIRECTV, Charter, Uverse, and FiOS, plus ad revenue to pick up significantly, in order to return $120 million/year to the 12 schools combined ($10 million/year per school) by 2014.

Jim Jones

OT BS you sprew out. We arein profit if we sign noother subscribers. Now to make really good money we need more carriers andforouur fans, but we are already in profit.